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New insight into the everlasting host-pathogen arms race

Nature Immunology volume 10, pages 808–809 (2009)Cite this article

New work explains how the interferon-γ-regulated GTPase Irgm1 on phagosomes responds to intracellular signaling and recruits the 'machinery' for fusion with lysosomes. This pathway overlaps a signaling route controlled by bacteria to prevent the fusion of phagosomes with lysosomes.

Many bacterial pathogens hide and grow in intracellular membrane-bound compartments called phagosomes, where they are shielded from the immune system yet receive nutrients from the infected cell. This situation poses a problem for the host. Therefore the host cell takes measures to destroy the pathogen, which the pathogen obviously tries to evade. In a classical evolutionary 'arms race', both pathogens and host cells have developed an arsenal of weapons, and this race is certainly not over yet. In this issue of Nature Immunology, Tiwari et al. identify the molecular mechanisms that underpin one host strategy for eliminating intracellular pathogens.

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Figure 1: Battle of the GTPases Rab14 and Irgm1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coenraad Kuijl and Jacques Neefjes are in the Division of Cell Biology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.,

    Coenraad Kuijl & Jacques Neefjes

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  1. Coenraad Kuijl
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  2. Jacques Neefjes
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Correspondence to Jacques Neefjes.

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Kuijl, C., Neefjes, J. New insight into the everlasting host-pathogen arms race. Nat Immunol 10, 808–809 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni0809-808

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